Tainted Night, Tainted Blood

18



I couldn’t move at first. I was so shocked at seeing my brother alive, I could hardly think straight, let alone think about my own safety. For an instant, I was frozen to the spot, my entire world spinning at my feet.

And then instinct kicked in.

I dove to the side as Thomas reached me. His sword arched down to where I had been. His intent had been clear. If I hadn’t moved, he would have embedded his sword in my skull. Instead, it caught the end of my coat, just barely tearing the thick leather.

“Thomas!” I shouted, coming to my feet. “Stop!”

He spun, snarled at me, and came again.

I waited until the last possible moment before moving. He came at me, his motions surprisingly fluid for someone who was supposed to be a mindless beast, and as I reached out to catch him by the bicep, his sword nicked me in the shoulder. An inch more and he might have cut me.

I yanked on his arm hard, jerking him off balance. I used his momentum to throw him to the ground, hoping to jar the weapon from his hand.

The sudden movement brought agonizing pain as something in my back ripped. I dropped to one knee as Thomas hit the ground. He kept hold of his sword as he went down. He blinked once as if the impact had stunned him, but before I could recover from my own pain, he growled low in his throat and was in motion again.

He rolled to his feet, swinging his blade in a low, wide are as he came for me. I leaped over the swing and crashed to the ground as my knees buckled upon landing. Tears stung my eyes and my breath was coming in ragged gasps.

I couldn’t fight him. Not like this. The pain in my back where the creature had torn into me was a screaming agony unlike anything I had ever felt. He had to have hit more than a nerve. The muscle was damaged, and if he had hit one of my internal organs, the bleeding could end up paralyzing me just as easily as silver. Just because I was a vampire didn’t mean I could go on indefinitely with wounds like that.

At least Thomas’s sword wasn’t silver. It looked a lot like the blade he had used when we hunted together as Purebloods. As far as I knew, it very well might be.

I glanced at my weapons laying a few yards away but doubted I could bring myself to use them even if I got to them. This was Thomas. I couldn’t hurt my brother like that, and I sure as hell couldn’t kill him. It would be like killing myself.

Thomas came at me again, eyes wild. I avoided his swing, but he anticipated me this time and swung at me with his clawed hand. I managed to twist out of the way just as his claws tore into the leather of my coat and into my flesh. Stabbing pain shot through my arm and blood splattered the ground at our feet.

I spun to face him, grimacing at the pain coursing through my body. He was already swinging again, a blow meant to behead me and end the fight all at once. I ducked under the swing and swept my leg around, catching him in the calves. He crashed to the ground as I regained my feet and staggered back.

I winced at the pain, trying to think through both it and my confusion. Thomas shouldn’t be here, especially not with others like him. It was impossible.

But as impossible as it was, he was back on his feet again, moving much faster than I could manage in my wounded state. While he looked as wild and mindless as every other mixed-blood creature I had ever seen, there was something more to him. He wasn’t acting like the crazed beast he was supposed to be.

I dodged his attack but lost my footing when I tried to spin to keep him in front of me. I hit the ground hard and instinctively rolled out of the way. Thomas’s sword missed me by inches. He snarled in rage and kept coming, swinging at me, keeping me from regaining my feet again.

With every jerk, my wounds seemed to get worse. I was wearing out fast, and I wasn’t so sure I wouldn’t bleed out if I didn’t do something about my current predicament and do it fast.

Thomas howled as he swung at my head, missing me by scant millimeters.

“Thomas,” I gasped, pushing away from him. My finger bumped into one of my knives and I grasped it like it was the last thing on earth that could save me. It probably was. “Please,” I begged. “It’s me, Kat.”

He didn’t seem to hear. He feigned to the left and I fell for it, jerking to the right. His clawed fingers caught me just under the chin, tearing the flesh. I jerked back fast enough so he didn’t tear my jaw clean off.

Pain jolted me. My vision went black for a heart-stopping second and I was sure I was done for. After all these years, fighting and killing vampires and werewolves, I was to be undone by my own brother. It had a sort of poetic feel to it.

I managed to push back, flopping my body backward before he could finish me off. My head hit the ground hard enough to jar some sense back into me. I managed to roll out of the way as Thomas thrust his sword down where my heart would have been. His blade struck the ground and stuck there, nearly all the way to the hilt.

He was strong, but the hard earth was stubborn. He fought with the blade, snarling in such rage he was probably making it harder on himself than he had to.

I used the seconds it afforded me to work my way to my gun. I grabbed the modified Glock and aimed, a mere twitch of the finger away from ending the fight.

I couldn’t pull the trigger. My hand tensed and I tried to will myself to alter my aim and at least shoot him in the leg. The silver would incapacitate him and I could figure out what to do from there.

But I couldn’t do it. He was my brother. I couldn’t cause him any more pain. He had suffered enough.

Thomas yanked his sword free and turned on me. His eyes were still his own, having not been affected by the partial change. I could see the brother I had lost in them. His features might be contorted from the mixed blood, but it was still Thomas. I might not be able to see it through his actions, but he was in there somewhere. He had to be.

I jerked my aim away and fought my way to my feet. My knees tried to buckle, but I managed to stand without falling. My head swam, my hand trembled. I was covered in blood, and most of it was my own.

“Thomas,” I said, backing slowly away. He advanced on me, one foot in front of the other, sword held at the ready. He eyed my gun. I think it was the only thing keeping him from coming at me wildly again. “Think,” I said. “It’s me.”

His upper lip raised in a sneer. He growled, tightening his grip on his sword. There was no hint of the man I once knew in his gaze.

He approached, stalking toward me like I had seen him stalk toward a vampire or wolf back when we hunted together. I didn’t know if it was muscle memory causing him to act like this or if it was something else. I hoped there was something of the real Thomas in there. If there was, then I had a chance.

Of course, it was the fear that he was still in there somewhere that kept me from shooting him. If he had been acting any other way, had acted like the animal he was supposed to be, then maybe I could have done it. It was my fear of hurting my brother that kept me from ending both our suffering.

My sword was a few feet away and I considered rushing for it. I could try to fend him off while I tried to reach him. If I could just make him understand who I was, I was almost positive he would stop. It had worked with Nathan back at House Tremaine. I’d managed to talk to him, to get him to work through the Madness and leave me be. It would work with Thomas too. It had to.

I started to move toward the sword and Thomas shifted his advance to intercept me. I halted immediately, not wanting to provoke him.

The arm holding the gun fell to my side. I was too weak to hold it up any longer. I doubted I could even use my sword if it came to that. If he were to take me down again, I wasn’t so sure I could get back up.

My legs trembled; the world wasn’t just swimming now, it was in a full-tilt swing. I could feel the blood running down my back, my shoulder, my neck and chest. My right arm was throbbing, and it was getting harder and harder to keep my fingers curled around the gun. I wasn’t even sure where my knife was. I must have dropped it somewhere.

There was only one thing I could think to do to survive this.

I feigned to the left just as Thomas had done to me. As soon as he shifted his weight, I took off to the right. I spun around, nearly fell flat on my face, and bolted for the backyard, putting every last ounce of strength I had left into it.

Thomas howled and I could hear him pound after me. My left shoulder hit the corner of the house as I went past. I staggered a few steps before regaining my balance.

A pile of wood was stacked against the side of the trailer, chopped and ready for winter. I had just enough time to reach down and yank a long log out from the bottom and kick the stack. The wood tumbled down behind me.

Thomas cried out, an inhuman sound that chilled me straight to the bone. He fell hard but was on his feet just as fast. I glanced over my shoulder and saw he still had his sword in hand. He ran slightly hunched over, like he wanted to drop to all fours.

I pushed myself harder. My motorcycle wasn’t too far away. I just needed to get to the trees and use them as a shield against him.

I felt something brush the back of my coat and risked another glance over my shoulder. Thomas was stumbling, lips peeled back in a snarl. He had swung his sword at me and had just barely missed. An inch more and he might have severed my spine.

I ran all the faster, pushing my weary legs well past what they wanted to do. My left knee nearly buckled as I burst into the trees, jumping over the dead wolf corpse. I bounced off a sapling and staggered around a large oak just as Thomas came in behind me. The quiver of his sword where it had struck the tree told me how close I had come to losing my head.

Black dots sprang into my vision as I ran. I was running on pure adrenaline. I had nothing left in the tank, and I wasn’t even sure I would survive if I did manage to escape. I was losing a lot of blood.

It was starting to feel like I was running through waist-high water. My legs were screaming and my right arm was hanging useless at my side. I could taste blood in my mouth and I knew it wasn’t from my fangs pushing through.

My Honda came into view and I nearly cried out in relief. I started for it, my body rejuvenated at the sight.

Thomas crashed into me just before I reached the edge of the road. We went down hard together. His teeth tore into my already useless shoulder and I screamed.

We rolled on the ground, with him latched on to me like a human-sized leech. Sucking sounds came from where his teeth had sunk into my flesh.

“No,” I said through clenched teeth. I knew he was already tainted, but the thought of him consuming more vampire blood scared me. I didn’t know if he could get any worse than he already was. I didn’t want to find out.

I slammed us both up against a tree, using him to buffer me from the blow. His teeth came from my shoulder with a rip and I screamed again, nearly blacking out from the pain. As strong and resilient as I was as a vampire, I had never taken this much of a beating.

Thomas tried to bury his claws in me to hold me still. He caught a handful of my coat instead. He roared in my ear and tried to bite me again. I slammed my head back and the back of my skull connected solidly with his mouth. I felt a tooth break on my scalp and blood started pouring out of my head, matting my hair.

His grip on me loosened and I fought my way away from him. My coat came away, caught on his claws. I had lost my gun somewhere in the woods and was thankful he seemed to have lost his sword as well. It was probably still stuck in the tree back where he had tried to behead me. If he had still had his weapon, I’d probably be dead.

I bolted for my Honda, hoping I could reach it before he could work himself free of the tangle of my coat. I leaped onto the seat, started the engine, and gave it so much gas I nearly lost control.

I shot down the road, breath coming out in pained gasps. I didn’t look behind me, fearing what I might see. I drove as fast as I could, putting distance between me and the bloody scene.

A rage-filled howl lit up the night, causing me to bear down harder on the gas. I sped up, woozy and bleeding from multiple wounds.

I was alive, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I would last.